Emo Michelini emigrated to Australia in 1949 from Trentino Alto Adige - a viticultural region in the north of Italy. Within two years of arriving, Mr Michelini, and his wife Olga, were establishing themselves as tobacco growers in Victoria's Ovens Valley.

In the early 1980s, Mr Michelini and his sons, Ilario and Dino, and their families turned their attention to viticulture. Grape cuttings obtained from Orlando Wyndham's Barossa Valley vineyard started the vineyard off and ultimately led to a continuing grape supply and more recently sparkling wine for Orlando's Trilogy label. The vineyard which is now more than 40 hectares was established on the Michelini farm in the Buckland Valley about 35 kilometers from Myrtleford, where the family has now established a substantial winery and cellar door complex. Ilario Michelini says that following the detection of some phylloxera affected vineyards in the Ovens and King regions, the transport of grapes, which were going to Orlando's Griffth operations, was no longer permitted and it became necessary to establish a local juicing operation.

With the vineyard production increasing, the juice operation soon became a winery and material additional to the continuing Orlando contract is now marketed under the Michelini Wine label. During the last vintage the winery handled more than 900 tonnes of estate-grown fruit. The first vintage in 1997 saw the release of four Michelini reds and two whites with the winemaking done by a contract winemaker. The last two vintages have been under the direction of resident winemaker Josephine Horn. A New Zealand University graduate in oenology and viticulture, Ms Horn has worked with several Australian wine companies, including Southcorp at Coonawarra. In between her two vintages at Michelini, Ms Horn worked the Northern Hemisphere vintages as a winemaker in Spain and France. After this year's vintage, she went to Oregon in the United States to further her experience with Pinot Noir and sparkling production. About 20 hectares of the Michelini vineyard is planted to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay to supply Orlando.

Another 20ha is heavily weighted to Merlot. Apart from producing its own label Merlot, Michelini also supplies bulk quantities of this variety to several other wine companies. The balance of the vineyard includes Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon and some Marzemino-a unique Italian variety. Ilario Michelini has a firm commitment that wine quality starts in the vineyard. The regional character is drawn from the alpine valley climate of cold winters and an extended summer of hot days and cool nights. He says that the main threat to vintage success is spring frosts, affecting the vineyard site in the Buckland River Valley. The Michelinis are so concerned at managing frost that they have brought their own helicopter-a Robinson 44 - which is on full-time standby as a frost management tool. The vineyard is drip irrigated from the Buckland River while some of the most frost prone sections also have overhead sprinklers for added protection.

The current Michelini label includes a Pinot, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon, complemented by an unwooded Chardonnay and a Riesling. Unique among the labels is the marzemino, produced from a northern Italian red variety which has deep plummy colour, a distinctive zesty tannin character which requires minimum handling, and is traditionally the last variety to be harvested. In early vintages the Michelinis have blended Marzemino with Merlot to produce a Marzemo. "We don't have a lot of Marzemo, but we think it's unique and makes wine which is traditionally preferred by northern Italians to accompany their pasta dishes" Ilario says. Also coming out of the winery this year is the first vintage of Fragola - an Italian grape which produces a sweet red wine. Ilario says that in the local area it is the favoured grape of elderly grapegrowers with Italian background. This year he managed to persuade enough of them to part with some of their grapes to produce 500 litres of basket-pressed wine. The recently bottled wine is being marketed as Fragolini under the Michelini Label, and Ilario is confident that it will find a niche market. For future vintages he is hoping to increase his Fragola grape supplies either from backyard or hobby-scale growers.